News & Events

Kuhns '13 Raises Awareness about Hazing

April 8, 2013

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.— Jordan Kuhns, a senior business marketing major from Winterset, Iowa, recently was a runner up in the National Hazing Prevention Week CAMPUSPEAK poster contest.

CAMPUSPEAK and HazingPrevention.org teamed in 2012 to launch the inaugural, not-for-profit National Hazing Prevention Week poster contest as a way to empower people to stop hazing in university student groups

Kuhns, who is an alum of the Sigma Pi fraternity, wanted to incorporate his love for design by participating in the poster contest and began creating his poster to spread his message with simplicity. “Hazing is a hard thing to deal with if you have ever witnessed or experienced it, so I came up with a simple poster to make people feel at ease when informing others about hazing and also preventing it in their communities,” said Kuhns.

The poster has a three-color scheme of green, orange and blue and across the center are three colored bars with the slogan, “Know, Decide, Act.” Each text has a corresponding illustration.

“The word ‘Know’ has a light bulb, which symbolizes the necessity to understand what hazing is. ‘Decide’ has a ‘Fork in the Road’ sign, symbolizing the need to decide whether or not your organization is hazing. ‘Act’ has an arrow which symbolizes the need to act on what you’ve just witnessed without delay,” said Kuhns.

He spent more than two weeks on the poster, perfecting the illustrations, colors and structure, along with receiving opinions from fellow students in order to make a relatable poster.

“I loved the opportunity I had to design something that could help many students raise awareness about hazing,” said Khuns. “It’s something I’ve always felt passionately about and being able to combine my two passions seemed to be a perfect fit.”